Thursday, June 02, 2005

21

      Douglas gasped. It might have been because he was suddenly surrounded by the massive ruins of a very ancient city. It might have been the way the drab crumbling buildings resembled gravestones against the pale winter sky. It might have been his memory oddly insisting that he had been somewhere like this before. It might have been all of these things, but he gasped, in fact, because the air was thin and stinky.
      "New York City!" declared Isis through gum, "right?"
      "No, no, Isis," corrected 1, "this city is dirty and inhabited by cockroaches."
      Josef and Douglas smiled.
      "It doesn't feel like Earth," observed Douglas.
      "The planet is on emergency environmentals," answered Josef, "3 has taken it too far from its sun."
      "No, the Sun is right there." Douglas turned around and pointed. "I guess it's smaller than usual..."
      "Oh no!" 1 cried, "Oh no, oh no, oh no. He's almost there!"
      "Where do we go?" Douglas asked Josef.
      "I haven't the foggiest."
      "Hold on," said Isis, and pulled a small metal sphere from the tip of her left index finger. She tossed it high in the air. "This way," she said, catching the sphere before heading off.
      "Groovy." Douglas ogled.
      A few more blocks, and they all knew where they were headed. It was a huge white tower, barely distinguishable from the huger white sky. Douglas was the last to notice it, but only because he was busy wondering if many robots got the same face, or if they got to choose, or what...
22

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